Sapporo Snow Festival Part 2: Sapporo TV Tower and Ramen Alley
Monday, February 16, 2015
The Sapporo TV Tower is located at the end of Odori Park. It's not super tall, but it has a neat view of the park. Since the festival was going on, it was crowded and took us over an hour to buy tickets and take the elevator up. But at least part of the line went around the gift shop and I saw some cute merchandise.
There was some sort of J Soul Brothers promotion thing going on and we heard some fan girls screaming super excitedly about it, haha.
I'm not a big fan of Japanese boy bands (Well, I love seeing them in ads and stuff and watching shows with them and stuff. So much ridiculousness. But I don't usually like the music very much.) but I do think J Soul Brothers are ok and I really like their song Ryusei.
I pretended to be a J Soul Brothers fan just because I wanted to.
It was neat to see the festival lit up at night from above. :)
Last time I went up in the tower I had wanted to take the outdoor stairway down but didn't have time because I had to meet up with some people for dinner. I thought I wasn't going to be able to do it this time either because Jonathan had been complaining about the cold a lot, but he actually wanted to take the stairs.
I really liked walking back down and it was my favorite part of the tower. :)
Next we walked to ramen alley. On the way I saw a poster for a really cute Snow Miku doll.
I just looked it up and found out that it costs 65,000 yen!!! Why so much?!?
Ramen alley is lined with many ramen shops, which mostly (maybe all?) specialize in miso ramen, my favorite kind!
It was kind of hard to choose because they all seemed so similar, but we went with one that had butter corn ramen, though some others had the same kind as well.
It was really tasty! Though it still doesn't beat the golden miso ramen I get at Kagetsu Arashi Ramen at the mall.
On the way back to the hotel we stopped at the nearby Family Mart to get dessert. I got a drink with super cute Snow Miku packaging.
It reminded me of Calpis, though I only had that once and that was about four years ago, so I can't be sure. It tasted kind of yogurty. It was ok, but I wouldn't buy it again.
For dessert I had Houjicha (a type of roasted green tea) flavored Meltykiss. I didn't really taste any tea, but they were delicious and melted in my mouth. So the name halfway made sense!
We ate dessert while watching wonderful Japanese TV. We saw part of an episode of Massan, a popular (though maybe just with old people?) drama. It's about some guy trying to start a whiskey business in Japan. The principal at one of my schools told me that I look like Ellie, the main woman. I don't see it.
There was a lot of standing around. A bit of talking. A lot of crying. So. Boring.
But we found it super amusing.
They had just tasted some whiskey and it was delicious and they got all emotional.
Then we saw some bowling. After each round there was a sound effect just like Wii bowling.
There's a "wiener crab" pizza at Pizza La right now. Though that doesn't really look like a pizza.
I wish I had gotten a picture (or even better yet, a video!) of a shampoo commercial with Matsujun talking to some mermaid and then at the end he got way too excited about the shampoo and started yelling about it. He seemed a bit insane at the end.
I think it was the next night, but we also saw a sports program that talked about the NBA for a long time. Then they started talking about baseball and the Star Trek The Next Generation theme song was playing in the background. Japanese TV can be so random. :)
There was some sort of J Soul Brothers promotion thing going on and we heard some fan girls screaming super excitedly about it, haha.
I'm not a big fan of Japanese boy bands (Well, I love seeing them in ads and stuff and watching shows with them and stuff. So much ridiculousness. But I don't usually like the music very much.) but I do think J Soul Brothers are ok and I really like their song Ryusei.
I pretended to be a J Soul Brothers fan just because I wanted to.
It was neat to see the festival lit up at night from above. :)
Last time I went up in the tower I had wanted to take the outdoor stairway down but didn't have time because I had to meet up with some people for dinner. I thought I wasn't going to be able to do it this time either because Jonathan had been complaining about the cold a lot, but he actually wanted to take the stairs.
I really liked walking back down and it was my favorite part of the tower. :)
Next we walked to ramen alley. On the way I saw a poster for a really cute Snow Miku doll.
I just looked it up and found out that it costs 65,000 yen!!! Why so much?!?
Ramen alley is lined with many ramen shops, which mostly (maybe all?) specialize in miso ramen, my favorite kind!
It was kind of hard to choose because they all seemed so similar, but we went with one that had butter corn ramen, though some others had the same kind as well.
It was really tasty! Though it still doesn't beat the golden miso ramen I get at Kagetsu Arashi Ramen at the mall.
On the way back to the hotel we stopped at the nearby Family Mart to get dessert. I got a drink with super cute Snow Miku packaging.
It reminded me of Calpis, though I only had that once and that was about four years ago, so I can't be sure. It tasted kind of yogurty. It was ok, but I wouldn't buy it again.
For dessert I had Houjicha (a type of roasted green tea) flavored Meltykiss. I didn't really taste any tea, but they were delicious and melted in my mouth. So the name halfway made sense!
We ate dessert while watching wonderful Japanese TV. We saw part of an episode of Massan, a popular (though maybe just with old people?) drama. It's about some guy trying to start a whiskey business in Japan. The principal at one of my schools told me that I look like Ellie, the main woman. I don't see it.
There was a lot of standing around. A bit of talking. A lot of crying. So. Boring.
But we found it super amusing.
They had just tasted some whiskey and it was delicious and they got all emotional.
Then we saw some bowling. After each round there was a sound effect just like Wii bowling.
There's a "wiener crab" pizza at Pizza La right now. Though that doesn't really look like a pizza.
I wish I had gotten a picture (or even better yet, a video!) of a shampoo commercial with Matsujun talking to some mermaid and then at the end he got way too excited about the shampoo and started yelling about it. He seemed a bit insane at the end.
I think it was the next night, but we also saw a sports program that talked about the NBA for a long time. Then they started talking about baseball and the Star Trek The Next Generation theme song was playing in the background. Japanese TV can be so random. :)